


(untitled PR/TFA crossover)

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cat BB-8, Crossover, Drift Compatibility, Finn and Poe pilot a Jaeger, M/M, is basically the entire reason this fic is being written, not tagging all the nonromantic relationships but they're still important
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:07:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Because as it turns out, I'm not at all alone in wanting Poe and Finn to pilot a Jaeger together. Set in the PR universe, but with the Star Wars characters thrown in various places, and with the kaiju returning to reopen the breach, necessitating new pilots...





	1. Dropped in a State of Imaginary Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little intro to set everything up so far... everyone else to get introduced as the action really gets rolling.

The monitoring did give them some early warning, at least. It wasn't much-- they still had to scramble to have even one operational Jaeger at the ready, for when something finally came through the reopening breach, and they'd need more than one before long. Most decommissioned Shatterdomes had long since been turned into something new, which left Hong Kong as the base of operations, though at least Anchorage had been salvaged and reopened, a last-minute training operation.

 

Anchorage is where Herc is headed. He'd accepted the responsibilities thrust upon him because he hadn't had it in him to refuse, at first. He needed something to keep him going, and he'd felt he owed Chuck and Stacker both that much, not to mention all the others. And if he'd left Hong Kong, where would he have gone? It'd have been just him and Max, and the dog wouldn't live forever, and then it would be just Herc waiting to die. No, he'd needed to stay, he'd needed to surround himself with those who knew, who understood a fraction of his loss, like Tendo did. And Mako and Raleigh-- she'd lost her family, too, and Raleigh'd been in the cockpit losing his first Drift partner... even if they didn't know the pain of losing a child, they both knew losses that in some ways outstripped his. Like everyone on a Jaeger's maintenance crew, who'd seen their pilots go down. Some had families to move on with. Most stayed. It helped to be around the people who knew.

 

With the breach reopening, it'd come down to Anchorage needing Herc more. He wasn't a commander by nature, but he could be a teacher. Someone better suited to command needed to be in charge of the 'dome in Hong Kong, and the moment a Jaeger was ready for action, their sole surviving team needed to be there to launch her. But Anchorage needed someone who'd been in a cockpit before, who'd faced down one of those things and lived.

 

Tendo fusses a bit over the decision, but it's final. Had been final before he'd even been told about it. Neither man is sure whether that makes it better or worse, exactly, but Tendo leaves LOCCENT in the best possible hands so that he can be out there to say goodbye.

 

"Trust me, mate, I'm not who you want in charge now. Marshal coming up is gonna be more like Stacker than I ever could be, and that's what this place needs. Good leader's gonna make your job easier, since you won't be doing mine as well anymore. And I won't be making the trip alone."

 

"That's the problem. You're taking my little buddy with you." Tendo jokes, crouching to pat Max. "And the dog, who's much more important to the 'dome's moral support."

 

Herc snorts-- Newt, joining them out on the tarmac and lugging two sets of luggage, just looks between them, confused.

 

"I miss something?"

 

"No." Tendo rises, pulling Newt in for a quick half-hug. "At least you won't be gone long, right?"

 

"Hope to be back in time to see whatever new goodies get sent up to greet us. If you don't get sent a competent lab tech in time, I want you to go find anyone who used to work for Hannibal Chau, woo them over with an honest paycheck and maybe some kind of immunity for past crimes, because honesty doesn't pay as good as crime? Just make sure someone is there to keep my samples fresh and safe! We've got a quick lecture series to tomorrow's K-Sci division and then we'll be right back in the lab."

 

Hermann arrives as Newt finishes talking, placing a calming hand on his arm. "They know how important your work will be-- they've had time to come up with new things down there, and your expertise in unraveling it all will be crucial." He turns to Tendo. "I'll be in touch with anything new as far as numbers are concerned, if you can keep me briefed on the status of the new breach while we're away."

 

"Can do, brother." Tendo gives all three men a salute. Hermann returns it much more crisply than anyone else, and Newt allows it with just an eye-roll, before they hurry to get themselves and their luggage loaded.

 

"They'll get back to you in one piece, but you'll have to find something else for morale." Herc chuckles, stooping to give Max a quick rub between the ears.

 

"We'll figure something out. It's what we've always done. Hey-- Herc... he'd be proud of this, I think. Chuck would. Seeing you do something with all your experience... And every lesson you give this new crop of kids, you keep him alive through it."

 

"Not sure about that. Sometimes feels like I never really taught him a thing. Academy made him such a bloody pro, half the time I thought maybe it was the other way around. But I'll believe you, on the... about him being proud. It's something he cared about. Hell... without him here to look out for me, he's probably glad I'm not looking for a new partner and a new Jaeger for myself. Don't think Max'd be much good in the cockpit, would you, y'old softie? Been getting too many treats, that's your problem, it takes the fight right out of ya."

 

Looking at Max helps-- Max won't notice if he tears up talking about Chuck, and even if he did, he wouldn't react to it like a human would. Herc scoops the old bulldog up and carries him onto the helicopter, strapping him into his own personal little harness. Across from them, the two scientists sit, nervous, clutching at each others' arms-- Geiszler, nervous about what might happen if specimens arrive before he does, if not about flying, and Gottlieb merely nervous about how much dog slobber might hit his shoes on the way to the airport proper.

 

\---/-/---

 

Tendo does have a chance to look into the new Marshal before the time comes to show her around-- Followed in her adoptive father's footsteps, wound up a state senator for California's 11th district. She was out of town the day the 11th was wiped off the map, and for how awful it had been to be on the ground then, Tendo doesn't envy her the distance. At least he'd done something.. how much worse would he have felt bearing the burden of a position of authority, and too far away to make a difference.

 

She'd opposed the Wall of Life, and had had some strong words on the subject of shutting down the only people who were doing a damn lick of good, but all protests suddenly took a backseat to some unspecified family emergency, and that had kept her from Hong Kong. Until now.

 

She arrives without a family in tow at all, but the helicopter pilot who'd brought her sticks close. Tendo likes her immediately-- he'd liked her immediately as he'd read she was from San Francisco, but her presence in the flesh only intensifies his approval. Her boots and clothing are sensible, even arriving out of uniform, her hair and makeup sensible, her demeanor very sensible-- tough, but fair, definitely with some personal touch to things.

 

Tendo had never worked with her before, but she and Mako greet each other with the warmth of old friends, speaking together in low voices, before saluting and going their separate ways. He thinks he envies that ease-- there are too few people he could talk to about San Francisco, and hear the things he needs to. Maybe if they work well enough together.

 

The pilot who'd taken to following her has the Marshal's suitcase in one hand, and a small pet carrier in the other. and that also fuels Tendo's confidence in the 'dome's new leadership. It might not be Max-- who else could be?-- but a pet anywhere was bound to be good for morale. The good effects would spread.


	2. Moving Forward Using All My Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things barely settle before new leads need following.

Tendo has a lab tech to look for, once he does get the new Marshal settled into the swing of things-- it doesn't take much work on his part, she's an old pro and she takes to the place.

 

"It's no Lima." She shrugs, a wry aside to her pilot. "But it's no Vladivostok, either. You have to be grateful for that..."

 

He nods and chuckles and looks at her starry-eyed, and for a minute, Tendo thinks he has a crush on the older woman, until he realizes it's something else. Hero worship, mostly, and honest affection and trust besides. Not that he could have been blamed for the former, if it was the case.

 

Once he's sure things will run without him, Tendo follows Newt's instructions, and heads out to look for someone who'd once worked for Chau. It's not as easy as he'd hoped-- there's such a reticence to talk that he seems to hit walls even before he can ask questions. He wonders who's stepped into the power vacuum-- whoever it is still uses Chau's name, he slowly gathers. It takes him a while. With no past tense in Mandarin, it's all too easy for conversations to roll along with the underlying assumption on Tendo's part that Hannibal Chau is as dead as Newt had once reported him being, and the underlying assumption on the other part that he's alive and kicking, and it's a long time before he catches onto the fact that people really are afraid of crossing him because he could have people listening.

 

Well, if he'd been a gangster looking to get ahead and saw his boss get snapped up by a kaiju, stepping into the man's shoes while keeping his death quiet would be the smart thing.

 

He's given up on this avenue and told himself to hope for a good lab tech coming out from Anchorage ahead of Newt's return, or coming back to the PPDC after having left the first time around, and he's settled into a back booth in a restaurant to reward his search, however fruitless, with better food than he normally gets. Before he even has the chance to order, however, someone is sliding into the booth beside him.

 

"Are you looking for Hannibal Chau?" She whispers, her English slightly accented-- British.

 

Tendo keeps his voice quiet and casual, and doesn't try to look at her face, just in case. She sounds young and not very scary, but if she works for Chau, then chances are she's armed and doesn't want her face seen. "Just looking for someone who used to work for him."

 

"Used to..." He feels her shift, to rest both arms on the table, and when a glance at her hands reveals them to be empty and a bit nervous, he risks a glance to her profile. "I don't know if I could help you find them, if they've been gone long."

 

"Not someone in particular. I just need one of his scavengers."

 

She looks up sharply, dark eyes meeting his. "For what? What does it pay?"

 

"A real job. With the PPDC."

 

She bites her lip and nods. "If I work for you, I won't have to go back to work for Chau? And it pays-- steady?"

 

Tendo nods back, feeling less hungry than he had a minute ago. There's no way she's old enough to have been scavenging for Chau during the war, unless she'd been working as a child. It's hard to imagine someone who spent their childhood hacking up and hauling back kaiju parts living to be a healthy adult, but he's not exactly going to say no. If she can't help Newt, she can do something... She looks hungry, physically and otherwise, and he owes it to the universe to get someone out of a bad life. He had his turn to be saved what feels like a lifetime ago, it feels like high time to pay it forward.

 

"Dinner's on me, consider it your job interview. Just tell me about what kind of work it is you do for Chau, and I'll explain what it is the PPDC is looking for."

 

\---/-/---

 

The Marshal settles in easily enough to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and Poe feels secure in the new location as long as he's with her-- her and BB, who makes the occasional sad meep from inside her carrier.

 

He'd wanted to be a Jaeger pilot, once. The first time around. His parents were with the PPDC, with Marshal Organa and her family. He'd traveled between 'domes with them and finished out his education as home-schooled, with the other kids whose parents went from 'dome to 'dome like his. He'd been one of the oldest of the kids he'd known, old enough that he'd left the last Shatterdome his parents had been stationed at to head for the academy, hoping to return as a pilot.

 

Instead, his mother died, everything was decommissioned, and Poe wound up living with his father, the two of them struggling on as civilians through the tail end of a war that no longer wanted them. It hadn't been what he'd wanted, but there was no way that he could run off and join the last 'dome standing, when his dad needed him.

 

Maybe this time around, things will be different, he doesn't know. He could find a compatible Drift partner... he could find himself inside a Jaeger. And even if that doesn't happen, he knows he can pilot one of the helicopters they use for airlifts. Hell, he could jump into anything that flies and make himself useful one way or another... it's the hurry-up-and-wait he has trouble with.

 

At the Marshal's urging, he sets BB's carrier down and unlatches the door, and several of the people working in LOCCENT break from their tasks to get a first look at her, though most return to scanning monitors and lines of communication with just that. A couple do drift over to meet her, though, and Poe's not surprised-- she's always popular, if not as popular as he thinks she deserves to be. She does have more social media followers than most of his human friends, though, which is something.

 

The little round cat stretches, the puff of her bob-tail twitching, and then she's rubbing against Poe's legs and voicing her feelings on the carrier and the trip. She likes flying, but she hates staying cooped up once they're back on the ground, and he'd been carrying her around in the thing for too long, if the irate meeps and mews are any indication. Still, when he bends down to scratch the round patch of bright orange over her rump, she starts up her trilling purr. He doesn't really have to worry about her being loose in the 'dome-- he's never had to worry about her being loose much of anywhere, she'd stuck to him like glue since she was a kitten, and if need be, could transfer her affections to a suitable replacement, just when he had to be away from her.

 

He introduces her to their quarters, after she's had some time to sniff around LOCCENT and get her bearings, and he sets up her food and water dishes by his nightstand, and her litterbox in his bathroom. He's glad he'd been assigned a room that came with one, for that reason alone-- the only space to put her box is in his shower, but he doesn't mind doing all his showering communally, he's used to locker rooms.

 

Once she's at home, though, he has to leave her-- he has one big job that needs doing, as soon as he's dismissed from any duties that might keep him in the 'dome itself, and there's no way he can take BB with him. He's not entirely sure how to make his approach, but 'while carrying a cat' just doesn't seem like the best way of doing it.

 

\---/-/---

 

As it turns out, Tendo still has to find a lab tech for Newt. He has no regrets, though-- turns out with no kaiju, Chau's salvage empire had turned to other avenues, and Rey wasn't only a scavenger, but a capable mechanic. The Shatterdome's maintenance crew needed beefing up, and he's willing to sponsor her taking a trip to the newly-reopened Jaeger Academy in exchange for all the information she does have on Chau. It makes the job of finding a kaiju expert easier, if there are any still hanging around, and whoever's taken the name and the top spot over, it wouldn't be a bad plan to get in good before the breach activity spews out any more monsters. Make a useful friend in low places and work out a deal over remains, so that Newt can get whatever is most scientifically important in exchange for whatever is most lucrative.

 

First, he has to take her back to the Shatterdome and explain things to the Marshal, but he tries to project an easy confidence for Rey's sake. She's out of her element and it shows a little bit, but only a little bit. It's enough to impress Tendo.

 

"The next time we arrange transport to Anchorage, you'll be on it." Marshal Organa says at last, giving Rey a warm smile. "Until then, you'll get an early feel for this place, I guess... I'm sorry Mister Choi didn't bring you in before we sent Hansen and the scientists, or you'd have gone on with them. Ah--"

 

BB, wandering free of her quarters in search of someone to be petted by, rubs past the Marshal's leg, gives Tendo a cursory sniff, and firmly attaches herself to Rey's side.

 

"Looks like your first job is cat-sitter." Tendo chuckles, as Rey tries and fails to shoo the animal so that she can take the proper tour that one of the techs has offered. She hardly thinks the Jaeger bay is any place for a cat, but every step she takes, the cat trots after her.

 

"I'm Jess." The tech scoops the cat up-- something which is put up with, but only barely. "And this is BB. We'll show you around."

 

\---/-/---

 

Dismissed from the Shatterdome and dressed in civilian clothes, Poe boards the ferry and tries to calm his breathing.

 

The little island is manmade. He knows that there are buildings in the slums rebuilt around sections of fallen kaiju skeleton, that which wasn't harvested and ground up-- he'd also read that over the years since the war ended, more and more of the bone was chiseled away so that it could be sold as powder. The island has as its foundation partial skeletons from the last kaiju ever to come through the breach. There's more-- rebar and concrete pilings and wooden rafts, it's a hodgepodge of building materials, covered with enough soil to support trees, he can see that from a distance. Perhaps a garden, it would make sense.

 

The ferry doesn't run often. Devotees rarely leave the island compound, and they don't welcome casual visitors. On rare occasions, though, they invite the interested to come and contemplate joining them, and so Poe has disguised himself as one of the lost and curious, easy prey for any cult leader worth his salt.

 

He's surprised the Buena Kai have retained so much power even after the closing of the breach. For several long months, he and his father had waited along with Han and Leia and Luke, for the cult to fall apart, for members to wander home, bewildered or upset or sheepish or in some half-drugged stupor, to their families. That day never came. Not for anyone, not that Poe had heard about. Maybe some people did leave, back to their grieving loved ones, but the cult stayed strong. Nothing like the promise of a second coming to make adherents keep the faith, and before long, it will be impossible to keep the news of an actual second coming quiet. If they're going to find Ben and bring him home, it has to be before the next kaiju, before news of the breach re-opening can reach the cult.

 

Han's been searching as many compounds as he could track down, mostly across the US. Luke, Poe doesn't even know about. Leia had gone back to the PPDC, and Poe with her, but coming to Hong Kong brings them so close to one of the most difficult-to-enter strongholds. Some may be more remote, certainly-- the island is clearly visible from the shore, bathed in the lights of the city, but while even a remote compound could be walked up to, the waters around the island are almost always empty, and it's common knowledge that no boats go near it, save the odd authorized ferry, every once in a blue moon. As the ferry draws closer, Poe can guess at the reason. The island has guard towers, and there's no natural cover to use to sneak up, just open water. But Han has never had any luck, and Poe has a good feeling-- or at least a good bad feeling-- about the island.


End file.
